His Spirit At Work In Us

Last Tuesday, Chad and I received a letter from our apartment complex. They had enclosed the fee we had paid to use the leasing office and explained in a less than polite way that we would no longer be allowed to meet in the leasing office for "church purposes". The letter was signed by the lawyers of the complex.

This was difficult to take. We were so excited to have a place to meet and had already invited the families back. We had permission but apparently not from the right person. We hadn't decided what we were going to do about meeting Sunday until Saturday.

I went out to go to the store and kept running in to people we'd invited. Finally the young man from Mississippi stopped me and asked where we would be meeting. They were excited to come.

I came inside and said, "Chad, there are people all over the world lifting up the name of Jesus from living rooms. We need to open up our home to these folks and have church. So. . .that's what we did! We worshipped together and were blessed by the young man's testimony of finding a job.

That night we had a great worship service with Quail Springs Baptist Church. They prayed for us. We shared with them how we want to minister to the children over spring break through delivering lunches. We were overwhelmed with people who wanted to buy groceries and volunteer.

Today Chad was planning to coordinate with the staff of QSBC. He was invited to share in their staff meeting about what God is leading us to do and find ways to facilitate ministry among the congregation.

He called me on his way to the meeting. We both felt the same way. It's awesome to watch God bring all these resources together, but we also feel like it's all for nothing if there is not an open door to talk to the residents of the complex.

Earlier this week, Chad put in a call to the section 8 complex behind us, but wasn't expecting much. He left a message with a the secretary who told him, "we don't want to have anything to do with churches!"

On my lunch break I sat in the car and prayed. If you haven't noticed my now, I do a lot of praying in my car. Apparently the antennae helps. :)

I was walking from the break room when Chad texted me. The manager of the Artesian Ridge Apartments called. ( we jokingly named it Venetian Village) She WELCOMED us to come and deliver lunches next week. She offered us the use of the kitchen in the leasing office and said we could have Bible Club in the common area.

Another way we want to minister to the residents is to make welcome baskets to new comers. She said she would email us when they have new people move in so we can visit them and welcome them. She even suggested we put a card with our churches name on it so they can find us.

Last night I was feeling down. I was really mourning the life we used to have. There is a reason why it's called "being in your comfort zone" IT'S COMFORTABLE THERE! It's hard to be in a new place, doing a new thing and working with new people.

On the inside of Chad's wedding band I had engraved "His Spirit at work in us." Our prayer is wherever we are, comfortable or not, The Holy Spirit at work in us will keep us together and move us forward.

Romans 5:5 says, "We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they are good for us - they help us learn to endure. And endurance develops strength of character in us, and character strengthens our confident expectation of salvation. And this expectation will not disappoint us. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love."

Consumed by His Calling

“You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatever you shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.” John 15:13

It’s hard to believe we’ve only lived in our apartment for a little over one week. We’re settling in to a schedule. At my new job I get three days off in a row giving Chad work. He has a house painting job starting next week and has been busy getting details for the church together.

We’ve decided the name of the church should be Truth Baptist Church. Our mission will be to share The Truth of God’s Word so others can hear and live The Truth. Chad was encouraged after attending a church plant training last weekend. He met a man named Solomon from Ethiopia who works in Tulsa, Ok planting churches.

Solomon shared his testimony of how he saw God heal a woman who had been paralyzed after giving birth. He was walking from house to house sharing the Gospel and the woman’s husband said, “You can witness to my family if you will come pray for my wife. If your God heals her then we will listen to you.”

Solomon told the man that he had never seen anyone healed so dramatically, but if this man believed then he would pray and believe with him for God to heal his wife. Together these men prayed over the woman and she stood up and walked. They told all of their neighbors what had happened, they all received Jesus and a church began in their village. Everyone, including Solomon’s faith was increased.

The question asked of the group was, was this an isolated incident. Do we have to be on foreign soil for God to move or is The Holy Spirit at work here in Oklahoma?

I’ve been confronted by the same question. Chad and I felt like we lived and worked in the flow of The Holy Spirit at Citychurch in Amarillo. It’s a scary thing to be spun from that orbit, but God has shown us He still has our address.

Tonight the weather was nice and the kids were at their Grandma Jennifer’s so Chad and I decided to take a walk around the apartment complex. We live on the end where all the other families with children are living. There is a grassy area running through the complexes and many families were out playing and enjoying the warm evening. As we walked back we noticed children riding their tricycles on the tennis courts. All the activity makes me look forward to an exciting season of ministry this spring and summer.

We keep saying, “God is feeding us like birds.” It is our way of praising God for His timely provision. We received a check in the exact amount of our car payment yesterday on the day it was due from Chad’s work at the car dealership. The week I started at Walmart was during the big snowstorm. Management was allowing overtime, so I took it! My brother James helped me with video project last month that will help make our rent this month.

Looking back on all we’ve been though the last few months I feel we accomplished a lot just by staying alive! While there has been a tearing down in our lives, we are also being built back up where we were weak.

Since we don’t have Dish Network anymore, we spend time after the kids go to sleep sharing about the different things we are learning and how we are growing in the Lord though all of our recent adversity. It happens to be some pretty funny sets of circumstances. The other night we started comparing stories about our day and got to laughing so hard our sides hurt. Real life is better than reality TV at this point.

As mom said the other day, we're living our own story. I just hope I can survive all the excitement to write it!

Trading Places

This past month has meant a lot of changes for the Clement family. Our house goes on the market tomorrow. In preparation for the showing of the house we moved out of the closets and did some rearranging.

Ever since the boys have moved to the front room two years ago, Sean has said he was scared. He and David would end up sleeping like puppies in the top bunk.

Sean has expressed to me some specific fears. He's complained about noises and lights, bumps, a mouse and a cat named "Carlos" who comes to their window.

Most of the time I tried to minimize his fears. It was easy to explain the cars driving past and road noise. I refused to believe there was a mouse in his room, but "Carlos" would get it if there was.

One of the moves we made this week was to move our bed in the boys room because it is the biggest room with it's own bathroom. This put the boys in our old room tucked away safely in the back corner of the house.

Tuesday Chad went to Oklahoma because he had to be in town early Wednesday. So I spent the night by myself in the front bedroom. I didn't have a problem falling asleep but about an hour later I was jolted awakes by a loud noise coming from the attic.

What Sean didn't know was that just above the room is the heater and when it came on in made a "roar". Surely to an imaginative boy like Sean this sounded like a wild animal!

To go back to sleep I had to fight the noise of basing hot rods and motorcycle engines. Even closing my eyes did not help block the constant stream of headlights through the side window.

I was pretty restless but felt better after checking on the kids who were snoozing away, fast asleep on their end of the house.

It turns out we do actually have a cat who prowls around our garage at night and he can still help himself to the mice.

Unable to go back to sleep, I turned the lights on low and laid in the bed. I thought about how much more compassionate I am to Sean's fears now that I've taken his place.

Philippians 2:4-10 says "Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow in heaven and on earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father."

God knew that in order to relate to us He would have to be one of us. While Jesus walked the earth He experienced, grief, loss, temptation and betrayal. He even took the punishment we deserved, the beating we had coming and the death we earned.

Jesus did all of this so we could know Him as Lord and Savior ; So we could feel his compassion when our heart breaks and win the wrestling match with fear.

It gives me great reassurance to know my God is not cold and uncaring to my anxieties. He knows, He understands and He is the way to overcome.

The next morning, after my adventure in the front room, Sean and I had a funny talk about the lights, sounds and wild animals. He said he likes it better in his new room, so he's going to stay there forever. :)

Chad's Side of the Story

A Marriage Made in Heaven

By Chad Clement

April 2003

It was a cold November morning and I was nervously awaiting my appointment for that morning. The interrogation party had increased by two brothers a few days before, but I knew they were just there to check me out. I wondered to myself if it would be easier to get a meeting with the head of the Gambino crime family than to meet the daughter of a Baptist preacher.

I had forgotten my razor in Dallas and had to make a panicked last minute rush to find a grocery store in Amarillo. The last thing I wanted was to show up looking like Grizzly Adams. I was up early that morning because feigning sleep was useless. I had prayed fervently, stretched, had some coffee, but somehow the thought of looking relaxed seemed like a distant possibility.

I had stood before promotion boards in the Marines where they asked impossible questions like, “How many rivets are on the back seat of a Hummvee?” or “What is the oldest weapon still in use in the United States Military?” Now I was going over in my mind the list of impossible Biblical questions that might be asked of me. More sweat. . .

There was some confusion over which Mc Donald’s we were to meet at, but Anna sorted that out. Finally I saw a black Scout drive up. I was sipping my coffee and praying as they walked up to the door.

As I shook hands with Don Sr. and Donnie a sense of relief came. I remembered that these were my brothers in Christ and although there was no doubt in my mind that they were very protective of Anna, I knew that we had everything in common.

I went on to meet Anna that morning with the apparent blessing of her father and two brothers. She was much more beautiful in person than pictures could do justice. When her father introduced me I stuck out a sweaty hand and she went straight for a hug. I was both relieved and terrified at the same time. I looked over to her family to make sure this hug was not grounds for immediate dismissal. When they seemed okay I figured I would probably live to see another day. What I didn’t know was that God had just blessed me with a wife.

I could say a lot about Anna and I or her family and what a blessing they have been to me. I could tell you about our future plans, because they are very exciting. More than anything I just want to say how honored I am that God has chosen us to be His own. After years of preparation Anna and I hve the opportunity to be joined together as one flesh and we plan to lay down our lives as a sacrifice to God. Matthew 16:25 says, “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it.”

It seems funny to me that people fuss so much over dating and wedding preparations, but neglect to honor God for the generations and generations of preparation He puts into the joining of just one of His sons and one of His daughters. This is a breathtaking labor of love.

Dusty Momentos and Old Legends

Tonight at dinner Chad and I were having a silly discussion about the details we shared on our match.com profiles. We laugh now every time we see a commercial for match.com because we are usually sitting in a living room crowded with our children. Seven years later neither of us is wanting a refund. Anyway, I got sentimental and busted out with my SCRAP BOOK. Much to Chad's dismay I had printed our "correspondence" from the first email to the wedding invites. :)

Among all my psycho clippings and photgraphs was the Citychurch newsletter where we had each written articles announcing our engagement. I was moved as I read our articles out loud. They confirm the purpose in what we are doing now and encourage me to look ahead at what God has in store. I thought I'd share them.

Where Will You Live

By Anna Lea Lane

April 2003

Chad and I have been dating for six months and the children I minister to have noticed that I have to travel to see Chad. Last week I took my Tulia kids on a special outing and told them I was engaged to a man who lives in Dallas. Their first question was, “Where will you live, Miss Anna?”

Through much planning a discussion Chad and I have decided that after we are married I will move to Ft. Worth to live with Chad. I my heart I had the same question as the children. I have a close family and we’ve never been apart. When I talked to God about what to do he reminded me to stay where I have always lived; within the sound of His voice.

I was born in Arlington, Texas at Arlington Memorial Hospital. As a young girl sitting in the pew of the church where my dad was preaching an out of town revival I gave my heart to Jesus. We went home to Caddo Mills, Tx where Dad was pastor and two weeks later I was baptized. As a youth my family lived in Burleson, Texas where Dad pastored Crestmont Baptist church. I was eleven years old at children’s camp when God called me to be a missionary and I surrendered my life.

At one point my mother added up all the places I have lived. If you count all the different houses I had moved 27 times by the time my family moved to downtown Amarillo. Moving from east Texas to Alaska and back to Texas. We lived in houses, on farms and in apartments.

There were not many consistent elements to my life growing up except those things most important. I always knew my family loved me, and we found strength in our relationship with one another. The other constant in my life was the immoveable Rock of God as my foundation.

I prayed to Him as a little girl on the mountain top in Alaska. I would ride my horse to the middle of our hay fields, cry out to Him and thank him for sustaining my life in such beautiful ways. Dad was terminally ill my Senior year of High School. I would fall asleep every night thanking God for helping us through each day. I would pray for my father’s healing and for my mom to feel the presence of God around her. Three months later I rejoiced with my family and praised God for Dad’s successful liver transplant.

In college I would run to pay phones to praise God with my parents each time I had successfully registered for another semester. I prayed everyday walking across campus that I would be a student worthy of the sacrifice it took for me to stay in school. I also prayed for God’s protection from any destructive relationship.

As a family, we prayed around our dining room table for God to send us on mission. God directed our eyes us to the worst neighborhoods of Amarillo. I have had the joy of praying with children as they receive Salvation in a rooms under construction in a broke down building on Polk street, in the middle of city parks and in Tulia’s town square.

Last year I graduated from Wayland Baptist University. I moved back home, unpacked my dorm boxes and settled into our building to wait for the rest of my life to unfold. I became frustrated wondering what God would have for me to do next.

I enjoy the ministry to children, but I became lonely for a companion. So many nights I would sit on the stage in our new park, watch the sunset and pray for God’s man to find me.

Last November I met that man. We will be married in the park on July 12, 2003. We plan to move to Ft. Worth for a while and follow God wherever He leads us from there. I do not know the future from here, but our desire is to return to Amarillo. I do know where I can find life to it’s fullest and it is in the presence of my Faithful Lord.

“The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were least of all peoples; but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharoah king of Egypt. Therefore, know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments.” Deuteronomy 7:7-9

A Letter Under My Door

I was 21 years old and a Junior at Wayland Baptist University. I had just spent the last nine months of my life struggling through college while being tormented by an abusive boyfriend whom I would foolishly accept a proposal from.

On December 29th I was home from college on Christmas break and I got a call from this manchild. We were arguing again. I was miserable. I was so afraid to call off the wedding and break up with the man, but I knew I would just be waiting to die if I went through with it. I hung up the phone, walked in my mom's room where she was folding laundry and said, "Mom, I can't do this!" she responded "Anna, you don't have to!"

That evening I accepted his invitation to go to dinner to "try and work things out" but I was done. I had taken the engagement ring off and put it in an envelope. That night over dinner I ended our engagement. I was tired of being made to feel worthless, and even though I knew I would face all kinds of embarrassment I was ready to make the right decision.

I came home that evening and went straight to my apartment at the back of our church building. I fell asleep crying. I slept all night until 11:30 the next morning when all of the sudden I got a knock on my door and a letter slid underneath. My dad opened the door just enough to say, "I love you" then walked away.

I remember going to get this letter and as I read it my tears just fell all over it causing the ink to run. After I read it I folded it in half. I accepted the challenge it contained to quit feeling sorry for myself and move on to greater things. I got up out of bed and got on with my life of serving God.

The night before my dad's funeral I found this letter. I'm not sure if he ever intended it to, but his words spoke directly to my heart again. This time in the midst of even greater heartbreak. I read it again through my tears tonight and once again it encouraged me to wake-up and keep going.

I retyped this letter just as Dad wrote it. I hope it is a challenge and encouragement to all of us as we start a new year, new season and a new day.

December 31, 2000

To: Anna Lea Lane

From: Don E Lane

Preparation Determines Our Destiny

Exodus 23:20 “Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.”

Anna, I am writing to you today for several reasons. One, I love you and I want to heal the hurt you are feeling. If there was a way to heal the hurt you are feeling, I would do it! Two, I want to tell you why this type of thing happens to people like you. Three, there are some things in life with such deep personal spiritual nature they are best expressed in writing. This will allow you to go back to these words over and over in life and wring all the good out of them you can.

The things you have experienced and are experiencing now speak volumes about what God thinks about you and what His plans are for your life. The poem I have often quoted comes to mind again:

When God wants to mold a man and make a man

When God wants to find a man to try His splendor out,

Watch His methods and watch His ways,

How He hammers them and hurts them and with mighty blows converts them

Into tiny pieces of clay

And He alone knows what they are about!

When you consider what you have seen in life. You have been cared for by the church along with your family all of your life. You have experienced the pain involved when that same group of people try to “kill the preacher”. You have seen the struggle financially when your we tried to be where God wanted us to be at any cost. We sat in the dark when they cut off our utilities. We drove old cars and threw papers at two o’clock in the morning to get by.

In a million ways you have had to accept less, and be happy with being third in line. You had to keep your tongue when all your friends could say whatever came to mind, because your father was the pastor. You had to suffer through boring sermons and sometimes brutal business meetings.

Sometimes it was confusing to try to live for God with a completely different set of rules and priorities as the other 99% of young people. You went to school at home while everyone else was with their friends. The rejection of your father’s message resulted in you being rejected by your friends. You had to move, and move and move! And now you have had your heart broken by someone with the wrong motives.

Five years ago you suffered the trauma of watching me be reduced to an invalid, requiring the whole family to put their lives on hold while I fought to save my life. Once that trauma had passed you were a part of a bold move to an abandoned building and the beginning of a ministry requiring more physical work than any other. It is a good thing you didn’t have many friends, at least it saved you the embarrassment of explaining you families strange vision of what a church should be.

When you consider what you are going through right now it is hard to know the reasons why. Let me give you my best answer. God has put you in a great position of knowing Him in ways few people will ever find in their lifetime. I know the task He is preparing you for is great because the preparation has been so great.

There are some jobs in a hospital you can be trained for in an afternoon. To turn on a machine and record the results takes maybe an hour to prepare for. The lady selling popcorn in the lobby did not have to go through rigorous trials and training. In that same hospital, a surgeon opens a patient’s body up and has that life in his hands. The consequences are grave and of highest interest because so much is riding on the result. Will a life be saved? A family member come home again and be able to live with all their health again? That physician did not have to go through a horrible week of training. He went through a life of training. He learned and studied and was tested until he ceased being what he was and instead became a doctor. Wearing the white coat, and writing on charts could be learned in an afternoon. Saving lives required suchh time, trial and testing that he literally was changed from the inside out into an officer of health.

Life in the ministry is much the same. In most of our schools today young people are being prepared to look like they are in the ministry. When they graduate they will know how to “wear the white coat”. They will order literature, plan the ski trip, have a great planning session and carry out a great calendar of programs. That will be the extent of their accomplishments.

Anna, God is rather preparing you to transform cities, and move continents to the feet of God. He is molding you into a person to wield the Word of God like a scaffold and do spiritual surgery with eternal consequences hanging in the balance. This generation of young babies are in your hands. The future of children who need a hope and reason to live are you assignment. Are you up to the task? If you never take the challenge, risking failure, could you ever be up for the task?

Instead with all honesty you can look that great calling in the eye without fear, for God has taken you to the heights of His love and has held you safe in the midst of the greatest of human hurt. You have seen a side of God only a few people will see. He talked to one at a burning bush, another with his son on an altar ready to be sacrificed. One he found covered in sores with all hope lost. Another hiding in caves from a vindictive king. He called some to a den of lions, some from a fiery furnace, others from the sea side. Some felt a fire of torture, others were beaten and in chains. Some were beheaded, and exiled to faraway islands.

II Corinthians 11:23-28 Are they ministers of Christ?—I speak as a fool—I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness— besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches.

You will have a few things in common with all these others who have gone before us. You will know the splendor of God and will be a mighty tool in His hands to use in these last days before Jesus calls for a final accounting.

Adoniram Judson was called from a successful business to the small Burmese Islands to serve God. There he worked to interpret the Holy Scripture into the Burmese language. While there his children and wife died of small pox. He came back to the states and married again only to return to his work. His second wife died along with his two children born form her. In the end he contracted the same disease and was buried and a small headstone placed at his grave reads: HERE LIES ADONIRAM JUDSON, THE BURMESE BIBLE IS HIS REWARD HIS RECORD IS ON HIGH.

Anna, at any turn we can all run away from this life of tremendous significance and accept something less. Many will choose a job that is easy and trouble free, but consider the reward for those who finish well.

With all My Love and Admiration,

Don E. Lane

The richest man in Amarillo